Posts from 2018-03-18

UPDATE: Saw an eagle - a very big eagle - sitting in a tree near my driveway yesterday when I got home from a Save The Allegheny meeting with Degawenodas Ni Ah Agatayonih, his beautiful wife Huitzilin/jitöwëdöh (and even their cute little dog! :) ) yesterday. Nature talks!Georgeanna DeCarloFebruary 26 at 8:31amNow we can add Toles Hollow Road in Coudersport, to the list of locations cited in “Where Are Your Best Chances To See Bald Eagles in Pennsylvania?” - PennLines.com.Last year people saw for the first time, a bald eagle fishing and perched in trees alongside the Allegheny, or as the Senecas call it, Ohi:yo River, where Epiphany Environmental wants to build a frack wastewater treatment facility (WWTF) with support from Coudersport Area Municipal Authority (CAMA). Appearance of an eagle at this site speaks volumes. We've much to be grateful for as residents of this area. Timing is everything. And we just got a big wake up call.For a bald eagle to show up at this exact spot is incredible. That one even exists anymore is extraordinary in itself. Brought back from the edge of extinction, the bald eagle is only around due to the efforts of people who decided his presence was worth fighting for. “You don't know what you got 'til it's gone,” is a popular saying. But I think that having being said so often, it's created a change in the dynamics of our society. We're getting better at reading signs. Things don't have to be gone anymore for us to realize their value. I heard about the eagle being here from a new friend at a meeting to oppose the frack WWTF. She said that she'd seen an eagle there many times and had pictures of him. For me, these are elements of the silver lining in an otherwise dismal forecast. We'd become strangers to our neighbors, taken our land, water, air, plants, animals for granted. Infrastructure and landscape of our little town was ever changing to appease corporate interests of a select few. We have been awoken to measure the importance of reclaiming our roles as stewards of this area. We are better acquainting ourselves with our neighbors and uniting with people we might not have met otherwise. Intervening with a corporation's plan that endangered public and environmental safety brought what was hidden to light. Now our community has the opportunity to choose its direction. We can push for the plan to bring our town into alignment with ideals supported by our neighbors and consider new opportunities for alternative safe, sustainable energy sources. But it takes dispelling misinformation proponents of this facility are projecting. These calls to action signify eagle's presence/presents, eagle's “medicine” as elders of indigenous societies refer to it.I went to that spot recently to see if I could see an eagle there myself. I didn't see one then but he showed up in an even more thrilling way, about 60 miles north and downriver. As I neared the meeting place in Salamanca, NY where I was headed to talk with friends, members of the Seneca Nation, I crossed the Ohi:yo. From my right the ginormous wing span of a bird overhead caught my attention. I saw the white on its back as he passed right in front of my car. A shiver of goosebumps went through me. A bald eagle. The actual point of contact became insignificant which was part of his message. It didn't matter where I saw him on the river, it was all connected. Just like all of us. Lakota people have a saying that recognizes unity of all – people, animals, plants, universal rhythm of the elements, “Mitakuye Oyasin,” we are all relatives - we are all related, which is reminiscent of The Golden Rule; do unto others what you would have done unto yourself. However, I think that living in a society where self-loathing is prevalent, the ideal to do unto others as we would have done unto ourselves creates a precarious situation and speaks to the heart of the matter here. Abusing others, abusing our environment becomes a justifiable cause, an end to a means for a person who hasn't healed past traumas, believes that money can buy happiness. Too much has already fallen waste at the heels of this destructive mindset and it's time to bring our society back into balance. As fracking and pipeline proponents consider what an acceptable threshold for loss of life is, I say that the loss of one life is one life too many. Perhaps that's why so many brilliant people precluded the suggestion to be thoughtful first of impact of our actions on others by suggesting that before we even do that, we must remember who we were and what was important to us as children. Before heartaches and belief systems, societal constructs and paychecks skewed our view.Mitakuye Oyasin. Namaste.